Posted
by
kdawson
on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @04:36AM
from the aeolius-called-left-message dept.

The Grand Poobah writes "The big-kite technology we discussed last month has officially launched in Hamburg, Germany. Reuters has a writeup of the new technology, which aims to cut fossil fuel use on sea voyages by an estimated 20% by means of a huge computer-controlled kite. The link includes a video."

Huh? How is this insightful?Environmentalists have been pushing for funding for development of clean, affordable technologies for years. Thats the very definition of a huge part of the environmental movement. Now, you clearly disagree with a lot of the ideology of the movement, everyone is entitled to an opinion and that is fine, but you clearly aren't the person who should be telling greenies what sort of "lessons" they should be learning, when, this is just the sort of projects they have been pushing for

Strapping kites onto oil tankers will only help perpetuate the outdated, unsustainable economies we rely on today. Developing technologies that save the shipping company $1600/day is a waste of time and effort.

I think I see what you're getting at here, but it seems to me that if the technology were applied to other sea-faring craft such as cargo ships or passenger ferries it could have the same effect. Or if not merely fuel-saving, then it could at least lower power consumption requirements such that a weaker propulsion mechanism based on an alternative energy source would suffice for transportation. I believe that the application of the kite towards oil tankers doesn't mean that it is only applicable to oil tan

Why you responded to my post, is beyond me. You certainly make a valid point, but you are using the wrong system boundaries. You're right that kites and the small horse used for the acceleration of sports cars (proposed below) do not solve the worlds problems. Indeed a paradigm shift is needed in order to fully solve our long term problems. We do not need to make transportation cheaper, we need to reduce transportation altogether.

Developing technologies that save the shipping company $1600/day is a waste of time and effort.

You fail to notice that the effort concerned with developing and marketing such a kite are not interchangeable with the efforts to find clean and reusable local power generation methods. Do you really think that the founders of the company in question (SkySails GmbH. [skysails.info]), could have contributed anything on the scale you are suggesting? The funding they received from local and European governments might be contributed to the uses you describe, but in comparison with fusion research it would still be a drop on a hot plate. SkySails was funded for 10% by public institutions (related to governments in one way or another) of which the EU contributed EUR 1.200.000. I'll leave the comparison with fusion research up to your friend Google.

Hello. Do you know any actual humans? Here's something to ponder: economic interdependance and global trade is the most effective way to prevent war. If you stop trading, then your neighbour may decide to just come and take your resources.

The trick is to research gunpowder first, so you can see the saltpeter on the map before your opponents can. If you don't have any in your territory, attack and acquire it before they can use it to make musketmen.

Prophesying the end of the modern world is something so old that you can find contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle who also did the very same thing. This isn't really all that new.

I suppose that some of those predicting the end of the Roman Empire were correct.... but it took several hundred years to happen. In that case, I suppose it gave legitimacy to those doom and gloom experts too.

We need to solve the energy problem NOW. We need to learn how to extract most of our energy from renewable resources (solar, wind, tidal [and nuclear as a stopgap]), and then work out the bioengineering we will need to regulate the atmosphere, prevent undesirable climate change, and produce additional energy and the materials for 21st century manufacturing.

We don't even have an energy problem. Indeed, all of the problems you are complaining about here is due to an over abundance of energy, not a lack of it. The fact that a doom sayer of the finality of the world like yourself can name off at least 4 different sources of energy that can be tapped and transformed into useful forms needed in modern industrial societies speaks volumes about how much effort is going into identifying useful energy forms.

The one huge problem, if there is one, about energy production is not how to extract the most out of the energy sources, but how to keep idiots from extracting too much from those energy sources at once. You may ask "Huh?" here, but pay close attention.... an explosion is just the rapid release of large quantities of energy at once at a point source.... aka a "bomb". And those kill people == very bad technology (to some people's thinking). This is the primary reason why nuclear energy (both fusion and fission) is the big evil bad guy, in spite of the fact that a nuclear future really is the best way to protect the environment in the long run. Not only for waste disposal, but even for mineral extraction costs (including intangible costs like environmental damage) nuclear fission is several orders of magnitude more efficient than petroleum and coal production techniques. For crying out loud, the typical coal electric generating plant produces far more toxic nuclear waste per kWh than a typical nuclear fission power plant. That is completely discounting silly things like CO2 that are now getting everybody's panties in a bunch. Fusion sources, if developed, are just the icing on the cake and make the argument undeniable.

The goal should be, 20 years from now, that we don't need oil tankers anymore.

This still doesn't solve the problem of how you can concentrate energy into a useful and portable source that can be tapped by ordinary people, for things like transportation and commerce. And mass transportation isn't always the solution, as there are legitimate reasons why many people don't want to be in a herd and travel the same route and to the same places that 90% of the rest of humanity is at.

FYI, did you know that when you throw a gallon of gasoline into your automobile, that at the refinery more energy was consumed in the processing of the gasoline than is available for you when you burn that fuel? Most of that processing energy comes in the form of electricity, which the oil refineries get from the same sources that power your light bulbs... but the point is that most fuel sources are just energy concentration mediums. And it is important to separate energy production from energy storage. Until you can develop an energy storage medium that is more efficient than petroleum, we will continue to require petroleum or something very similar for a very long time to come. Lithium ion technology looks very promising at the moment, as are some other interesting energy storage devices. Ethanol is, IMHO, a horribly wasteful energy storage form but at least it is a semi-viable replacement for common uses of petroleum if you absolutely must stop the black fluid mineral extraction processes. And most alcohols don't

I like your post overall, but this gave me pause:FYI, did you know that when you throw a gallon of gasoline into your automobile, that at the refinery more energy was consumed in the processing of the gasoline than is available for you when you burn that fuel?

I know that's true for the entire process for certain kinds of sources- tar sands, for example, take a great deal of energy to make a useful fuel- but I was under the impression that it wasn't the case for the majority of fuel.

I agree that strapping a kite onto an ocean ship is a silly thing to do

If it's silly but it works, is it really silly?

This company developed something that, while it might seem silly, has the potential to save $$$ in fuel costs, and therefore reduce the demand for oil by at least a bit.

Per the article: a kite costs $775k, and can save $1.6k per day, 'under favorable wind conditions'. Figure that's 100 days a year, that's $160k saved per year, or about a 5 year payoff. An easy sell, in financial markets(as

We need to learn how to extract most of our energy from renewable resources (solar, wind, tidal [and nuclear as a stopgap])

Strapping kites onto oil tankers will only help perpetuate the outdated, unsustainable economies we rely on today. Developing technologies that save the shipping company $1600/day is a waste of time and effort.

While I agree that some "hybrid" (as in hybrid car) solutions are useless for tackling climate change, I have to disagree with you here. Ships have a similar problem as airplanes

...we don't want every merchant ship in the world to have a nuclear reactor on board, for obvious reasons.

Those reasons are...? You can't just throw a potential solution away and say that the reasons for rejection are obvious, without saying what they are.

I'll give you a start: it's probably too expensive right now. However, that'll change as diesel gets more scarce and expensive, and it will change as nuclear power, and the industry around it, gets more efficient. (Remember, there was a time when steam

Those reasons are...? You can't just throw a potential solution away and say that the reasons for rejection are obvious, without saying what they are.

Okay, I see I expected a bit too much there. Let me put it this way: The current nuclear powers that be see naval nuclear technology as a weapon technology. If we wanted to run every merchant ship in the world (such was my initial remark) to run on nuclear energy, this technology would have to be freely available to every country, every shipmaker in the worl

Strapping kites onto oil tankers will only help perpetuate the outdated, unsustainable economies we rely on today. Developing technologies that save the shipping company $1600/day is a waste of time and effort

Hey, I'd like it if nuclear power took off in commercial vessels. Considering how much fuel those guys burn it would be worth it.

Your thought process precludes incremental improvements, and denigrating this while promoting windpower in the same comment is silly. It is windpower, and some windpower is b

Hauling vast quantities of cargo around the world simply to exploit cheaper labor elsewhere, while consuming vast quantities of nonrenewable resources, is not sustainable.

This is straight-up BS. Trade is going to pull the world's poor out of poverty, nothing else. Proof enough of that can be seen in the huge drains on world commodity supplies lately; the former undeveloped world is developing, fast, and they've got the money to do it. That didn't come through some five-year plan from the fever dream of

The goal should be, 20 years from now, that we don't need oil tankers anymore.

And apparently developing practical, working examples of alternate forms of propulsion using renewable energy for the ships that we will need in 20 years has no part of that?

GTFO. You're talking about some completely insane timeline to completely change our energy infrastructure -- even if fusion power was perfected today, it would take more than 20 years for us to replace every coal plant on earth, and that still doesn't give

1) $1,600 / day *per ship* savings on fuel costs sounds pretty good to me -- nearly 600k a year. Of course that's a significant saving for a shipping company, look how they've borne down on crew costs to save relatively smaller sums. Assuming an installed cost of $750k, there's a payback time of just a year and a quarter, and that's conservative: fuel prices are heading up which increases the savings, the costs of production will head down due to economies of scale if the tech takes off, and the article notes that larger kites would -- in principle -- deliver larger savings.

2) Why on earth would you make the kite the bridge of the ship? The tether is about 300m long, what's the point of it being 240m instead? When you pull objects along, you attach the tether to the front of them, not the middle -- it's more efficient and it's more stable. Watch a child pull a toy dog along to see this principle in action.

3) They have their own solution to rough weather, and it's simpler than a frigging autonomous flight capability.

4) Lifting a fifty thousand ton ship bodily out of the water with kites doesn't sound like a terribly feasible solution. The hydrofoil idea might possibly be worth pursuing, but I suspect there are good technical engineering reasons for why large freight ships don't currently use this design that would preclude its use even with a kite.

FTA: Under favorable wind conditions, the 160-square meter kite shaped like a paraglider is expected to reduce fuel costs by up to 20 percent or more ($1,600 per day) and cut, by a similarly significant amount, its carbon dioxide emissions.

I'd read that as saving $1.6k per day(under favorable conditions).

Time for research:Daily fuel cost: 7,900 AUD [vic.gov.au] ~ $6.8k. 20% of that is 1.36K. But then, it assumes heavy fuel oil at $130/ton, current prices look closer to $200 [doe.gov]. Then again, the dollar's value has dropped

I don't know much about the conditions at see (so potentially over-qualified to talk about it on/.;) ) but wouldn't there be stronger winds higher up? Think of a normal kite - you hold it at ground level and you get a bit of a gust, but get it up to flying altitude and it is really pulling.

So they may have re-invented "the really high sail" by removing the mast and putting it on the end of a rope/tether instead, but not just a normal sail.

I took up kitesurfing in the summer. I can attest to the enormous power a kite can yeild - far more than a sail of the same size. Most people kitesurfing use a kite around 10-12 metres long depending on their size and the wind conditions. When I was learning the ropes (sorry), I used a 3 metre kite on land. I am not a small chap. But that 3 metre kite picked me up as if I was hardly there and threw me around.

Power kites are quite hard to learn how to control properly. I think the leap in the technology here isn't the wind which, as you point out, has been done before, but the control systems to keep the kite in the air, stable and effective.

That Sail manufactures will all be getting a piece of this. It takes a lot of money to make a good long lasting sail. Not to mention keeping it in good repair overtime. Ocean air and the Sun aren't exactly friendly to Quality Sailing materials that are used on a daily basis.

Sometimes, it seems, there are no new ideas. As others have said, what we have here is a glorified sail. Nothing wrong with that, but as fossil fuels become more expensive, we'll find more and more "old tech" make a comeback.

No, basic technologies are not new - what's new are refinements. For example, Linux is a re-implementation of a 35 year old Operating System [levenez.com] having the chief innovation of a license change [gnu.org]. I'm not knocking the quality that Linus has put into the Linux kernel, but Linux is written to be POSIX compliant, so while drivers are nice, Linux is basically no different than any other UNIX but for the license difference.

Sometimes, it seems, there are no new ideas. As others have said, what we have here is a glorified sail.

Not really. It might be closer to a windmill than a sail... The idea of using the wind for power might be millions of years old, but new ways that do it several orders of magnitude more efficiently, and in significantly different ways, aren't the same tech by any stretch of the imagination.

This is a lot closer to a kite or a parachute. The ONLY similarity is has with a sail is that it happens to be powering a boat in this case. Far more differences than similarities, and I don't hear anyone complaining that sailing ships were just rip-offs of kites...

Eliminating the huge weight, manpower, and most of the wear that was inherent with sails makes this a vastly different product that could well have been a revolution in naval technology (exploration, trade, warfare, etc.) if it was around in the 16th century.

With wind turbines and electric cars you have a point that they aren't really new inventions, but they certainly have been VASTLY refined. In other words, a rocket that can fly to the moon and back isn't an over-sized bit of fireworks, but it's easy to oversimplify anything until it sounds trivial... Hey, a 3GHz dual-core computer is just a bunch of electric switches, and they had those in the 1800s.

This 'kite', however, is decidedly new, by any reasonable metric, and I look forward to seeing if it's actually practical for commercial use on a large scale.

Not really. It might be closer to a windmill than a sail... The idea of using the wind for power might be millions of years old, but new ways that do it several orders of magnitude more efficiently, and in significantly different ways, aren't the same tech by any stretch of the imagination.

Several orders of magnitude more efficient? That sounds very unlikely, given that sailing technology is pretty competitive these days, with competitions like Americas cup where investors are practically standing in lin

Advantages of a kite:Wind at higher altitude is more consistent and stronger. Part of the reason americas cup boats have such tall high aspect sailsA kite flies back and forth through the air experiencing an increased wind speed compared to static sail

The center of effort for the force from the kite can be placed very low on the boat so that heeling moment is minimised. So no need for a deep keel or long heavy fragile mast.

With the kite retracted the wind propulsion system is hidden away. So reduced winda

I didn't object to kites being useful, or even "best" in certain situations. I did object to them being "several orders of magnitude more efficient", as modern sails are already pretty close to the theoretical maximum (and certainly not several orders of magnitude away from it). What you choose depends on a lot of factors, such as how much you want to invest up front, how much you want to pay for maintenance, reliability, practicality, performance, ease of use, legality, contest rules, etc...

Sometimes, it seems, there are no new ideas. As others have said, what we have here is a glorified sail. Nothing wrong with that, but as fossil fuels become more expensive, we'll find more and more "old tech" make a comeback.

The industrial revolution and the age of enlightenment led us to overconsumption. Defoe's Crusoe is an exemplary of a human being getting in control with the nature - everything is possible with ingenuity and sufficient resources. Sadly the western societies especially have since declined to self-worship rather than co-operation, because we generally are weak before our needs and desires. Combined with individual freedoms the nature was lost into artificiality, and many aligned with a mechanical world-vi

although the idealized modern view of the historical times tends to forgot the sorrowful and filthy side of the past reality. Maybe we are more mature now, however?

That's putting it lightly. Until very recently, all but a very small elite in most places lived in squalor and physical discomfort, probably sick (by modern standards) most of the time, either freezing cold or sweating hot, living and dying without venturing much further than you could see today from a moderately-tall building. And based on the

You seem to imply that 'social impact' may be superior to 'wealth-creation' among the list of possible motives.
If that's the implication, could you lay out an objective proof as to why?
This is a sincere question.

Thank you for a thoughtful response.
While I can imagine a more altruistic world through a religious eye, the problem I have with frequently with entities implementing 'social impact' is that their focus is stated in acute terms; "Gotta offer hurricane relief", but quickly shifts focus to chronic; "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy"
Bureaucratic systems, unlike well engineered physical ones, tend to lack good negative feedback loops, as too many people discover powe

This is a great start but not the whole answer. The position of the kite allows it to only work with the wind coming from abaft of beam. (from behind)Also creating a "lee-helm", driving her nose down wind. To get the 20% fuel savings (I am guessing closer to 15%, from experience) 50% of the time, a second kite would be needed amidships.
The wind would in fact be much stronger at altitude, But with little to block it 100 feet above sea level, I believe a schooner rig would be as productive, more often. "Down-wind" is not the best point of sail. "Close-hauled" is. Where the wind comes from either side of the bow. Creates an airplane wing effect that sucks ship forward. (Positive to negative) With kite alone, the ship would lose a lot of energy trying to stay on course due to rudder angle. Under perfect conditions, this will work great. Just not often. I am retired from the U.S. Merchant Marines and have worked and sailed on many tankers and schooners. I do believe we tossed sail aside to quickly. Amazing, free and renewable energy.

It's a steerable airfoil kite (like in kite-surfing) the power is generated by making figures of eight, roughly in the point you want to be pulled to. They've developed a nice automated pilot for controlling the kite. In this way the kite can deliver power in any direction that has a down-wind component. (You are right in stating that it is not as effective in all directions.)

With a sailboat the lee helm is cased by one side of the boat being slightly under the other. This happens because the sail on the mast acts as a long lever. This will not happen in this kite system. In fact it may help to pull the bow up.

Paul McCready (of Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross fame) mentioned in a talk I got to see that he had created a wind-driven water craft that could carry a person and make double the wind speed... directly upwind. Essentially a turbine driving a propeller, and the craft in general being a hydrofoil.

Why don't you need one? In the photo on the last/. article the kite isn't dead ahead of the ship, and you'd expect that to be the case most of the time. If that tends to pull the ship off course, don't you end up using the rudder like a rather poor keel, effectively dragging the ship through the sea sideways, and thus wasting a load of energy, not to mention the stress on various parts of the ship?

When fighting enemy warships, a kite ship can get close enough to fire a shot, then the kite kicks in and they move away, out of range of the pursuing enemy ship, all the while firing shots at them. Using this tactic they could easily draw an enemy warship far from their lines and away from possible assistance to an area of the sea where additional friendly warships can be brought to bear upon it.

Can't use it in a storm.Can't use it when heading into the wind - can't tack with a kite.Can't use it when theres no wind.

Also in the video it seemed to be moving around a lot on its mounting pole when furled up even in the slight breeze. How you'd unfurl it in a strong wind without damage to it or its cables I shudder to think.

I assume the 20% savings ($1,600/day) is when the wind is blowing good, and in the right direction.

Just on general principles, that's going to happen about 1/3 the time times maybe 1/2 the time.
So actual savings are going to be around 3% ($266/day)
That's about $78,000 per year. Barely enough to pay for one employee to manage the kite. Nothing left over to pay the interest ($60,000), or pay off the principal (another $75K over 10 years).

Gosh yes, this does appear to be a fatal flaw in their plan. Here's what I suggest you do. First of all you need to send the beermat or envelope with your calculations and these general principles of wind dynamics off to the company and include a written warning in the strongest possible terms outlining why their years of planning, development, testing and implementation have been in vain. Doubtless initally they may horrorstruck with your revelations but eventually you'll almost certainly be called in for some well paid and top level consultancy where you can use your years of expertise to get this failing project back on the rails. Why, I imagine you could do this in your spare time without even breaking a sweat. You're so wonderful.

If the ship travels as is mentioned, it's traveling in a triangle. I'm assuming the winds don't follow the ship's path, so it's only likely to have the wind blowing in roughly the right direction about 1/3 of the time. So that's a factor of 3.

Then winds do not always blow at top speed. In fact, to be useful at all with this kite/sail, the wind has to average considerably faster than the forward speed of the ship!

I'm being somewhat generous in estimating that only HALF of the time can you expect th

You do realise that some routes have pretty reliable prevailing wind patterns, and that these have even been used historically for shipping channels back in the day when sails were the main form of powering ships? Google for example 'roaring forties' and 'clipper route'. There are others.

I assume the 20% savings ($1,600/day) is when the wind is blowing good, and in the right direction

That's an amazingly wild assumption. After watching the video, I have the definite impression that that $1600/day estimate has arleady taken this into account and is estimated based on the typical average prevailing winds on their routes.

The problem with sails is labour. If they have to add crew to handle the sails, then they dont save anything. A 15m mast with a kite is not much different from flying a spinaker and simpler sail systems can be furled automatically, so there is room for improvement and automation.

Am I missing here? What kind of advantage does a kite provide over sails which I'd say are a proven technology. To me it seems that 500 year old technology [wikipedia.org] is superior to what this company has developed.

I can think of a few distinct advantages over the kite. First, the sails are attached to the ship. There isn't this thing blowing around in the sky which might change direction unpredictably when the winds change. Or worse, make a dive for the ocean. Second, the kite is completely useless in headwinds. One

Am I missing here? What kind of advantage does a kite provide over sails which I'd say are a proven technology. To me it seems that 500 year old technology [wikipedia.org] is superior to what this company has developed.

I can think of a few distinct advantages over the kite. First, the sails are attached to the ship. There isn't this thing blowing around in the sky which might change direction unpredictably when the winds change. Or worse, make a dive for the ocean. Second, the kite is completely useless in

There's no reason why the kite can't reach and tack just like a normal sail. It's working on the same principles. In fact the kite, which is really more of a parasail, could conceivably do the zig-zagging while the ship maintains a steady course.

Zig-zagging the sail wouldn't change the fact that the force from the wind would be pointed in the opposite direction the ship wants to go.

The ship has to be the thing that zig-zags, because the way tacking works is the keel of the ship prevents sideways motion, and

The US and Russian navy have been running nuclear ships for decades. The last incident in the US was in the 60's. All in all, we have a number of well developed nuclear power plants. While I do not know the Russian situation, I assume that they have some very stable and safe designs. Now is the time to re-start up the program with nuclear freighters. In particular, for ships in the Atlantic would be very useful (the Pacific would be better served with a bridge going between Alaska and Russia). The kite can

First, it would not require a gov. team, but even if so, it would be a small team and no doubt be far cheaper than the current situation with increasing diesel costs. In fact, according to the US navy, it is cheaper to run the nukes than diseal. A big part of that is because the reactors are pretty standardized. They really are nuclear batteries.

Sort of funny seeing them going through all that trouble to wrestle a little $300,000 parachute "kite" to pull a huge ship. Couldn't they just enlist a bunch of Chinese to row the thing and save $300,000?

Some remedial math: $725,000 / $1600 = 453.125. A technology which repays itself in about 15 months is very much worthwhile. It means you get 100% return on investment in two and half years. Even if the sail needs complete replacement every 2-3 years, or the equivalent in maintenance costs, it'd still be a good investment.

Ships have a useful life of 20 to 30 years, so in the end, you wind up about 12 or 13 million ahead, even factoring in a total replacement at mid-life. And this rough calculation is just at (presumably) todays oil prices - when oil is double the price, you're now saving $3200/day and so on.

Yeah, and for all that trouble, you've saved about.0001% on the operation costs of your boat. Ok, maybe it's not that little, but let's think about this. How much does it cost to run a cargo ship for a day, including crew, fuel, fuel for crew (aka food), depreciation and maintenance of ship, and all the other costs of running a ship. Now lets add to that the cost of a sail, and the increased crew necessary to maintain and deploy such a sail, and think about how long it will take before you see any notice

"eah, and for all that trouble, you've saved about.0001% on the operation costs of your boat"You are too ignorant to talk on this subject. Stop it.Think about this:If the trials are successfull. AKA about 1600 a day in saving, the shipping industry is ready to jump on it.

So we can debate about it's plus and minuses, but the real experts want it and say it will be a cost savings.I have a tiny bit of insight into the costs to run a ship based on some global logistics work I did a few years ago.

I suggest you and all the other people posting similar concerns send your criticisms to the manufacturers of the kite; After all, it seems clear that when they invested huge amounts of time and money and engineering expertise developping this system, they foolishly neglected to consult a random slashdot pundit who could have doubtlessly steered them away from this blatantly doomed project with nothing more than some half-assed, uninformed, back-of-a-beermat guesstimations.Do you really think this project wo

It's an assist system targeting a 20% average reduction in fuel costs a peak savings of around 50%.So:1. At no point would the ship ever slow down more than it would with current tech.

2. Ships already need to expend energy based on drag so if the path and speed is unchanged so is this effect.

3. With a savings of 1600$ per day the cost of replacing a kite is probably trivial after a few months. The kite is not the primary cost Instillation costs are dominated the cost to retrofit the ship, control software